Magnolia Bluff

Final Journal: Reflection Saturday June 3, 2017 I’d like to preface this reflection by stating my appreciation for Tim Billo and his assistants for their respective fervors for natural history and the environment. The structure and content of this class never once bored me. Even the more difficult assignments felt like all the work put into them was rewarded with lasting fulfilment and/or an acquisition of interesting knowledge. It’s unlikely I’ll feel as happy and satisfied about the body of knowledge I gain from a single class as I do with this one. I’ve tried to label each question in my answers, but I kind of answered all of them as a single prompt. Questions 1&3 My perception of my observation site has changed from being an essentially arbitrary part of a public park to a site that I feel emotionally invested in. After spending many hours of solitude studying and appreciating every inch of the area, it began to feel like a sanctuary away from my life as a ci...

Sunday May 26, 2017 Clear skies, ~75 degrees Fahrenheit, extremely low tide. Summer is fully among us here in Seattle, and it is evident in not only the weather and vegetation but the amount of people in the park as well.  Some Scot's Broom, which although invasive, is quite beautiful. The trails less traveled that I usually take have become obstacle courses of nettles, shrubs, and mostly the invasive Himalayan blackberry. The thick of the trees, shrubs, and plants completely obscure the view of the Puget Sound that earlier in the quarter clearly glimmered through the branches. Now that we are tasked with finding at least 50 species in/around our sites, I actually took the time to meticulously look through my field guides for hours when I saw something that I couldn’t put a name to. Most of the new species I named had been here all along, but of course they are now in bloom and more apparent. I identified grass-like plant that I have been frustrated by the whole...